Pragmatics

Pragmatics

Study of meaning in context

Family resemblance

Members resemble each other but aren’t equally as good representatives for a word family

Graded membership

Determined by degree of closeness to prototype

What are family resemblance and graded membership?

Culturally dependent

Utterance

Any stretch of talk by a person followed and preceded by speaker’s silence

Three components of speech acts (Speech Act Theory, 1969)

1. Locution
2. Illocution
3. Perlocution

Locution

Message

Illocution

Intention

Perlocution

Hearer’s reaction to speaker’s message

Felicity conditions

1. Preparatory condition
2. Propositional content condition
3. Sincerity condition
4. Essential condition

What is the felicity condition’s purpose?

They need to be fulfilled for a speech act to be performed

Preparatory condition

Authority of speaker and circumstances of the speech act are appropriate to its successful performance

Propositional content condition

Participants understand language

Sincerity condition

Speech act is performed seriously and sincerely

Essential condition

Speaker intends that an utterance be acted upon by addressee

Speech act taxonomy

1. Representatives
2. Directives
3. Commissives
4. Expressives
5. Declarations

Representatives

Says things which are true about the world (suggestion, complaint)

Directives

Attempts to get listener to carry out an action in the future (command, request)

Commissives

Way to ensure that the speaker will/won’t do something in the future (promise, guarantee)

Expressives

Show speaker’s emotional state (thanking, apology)

Declarations

Can bring about a change in the world, institutional (effects, verdicts)

Directness

Direct relation between form and function

Indirectness

Mismatch between form and function

Grice’s co-operative principle

1. Maxim of quantity
2. Maxim of quality
3. Maxim of relation
4. Maxim of manner

Maxim of quantity

Contribution needs to be as informative as required, not more or less

Maxim of quality

Don’t say what you believe to be false, don’t speak about what you don’t know

Maxim of relation

Make your contribution relevant

Maxim of manner

Be clear and brief

Non-adherences to maxims

1. Violating a maxim
2. Infringing a maxim
3. Opting out from a maxim
4. Flouting a maxim

Violating a maxim

Failure to fulfill a maxim to mislead hearer

Infringing a maxim

Failure to observe a maxim due to imperfect linguistic peformance

Opting out from a maxim

Unwillingness to cooperate without wanting to appear uncooperative

Flouting a maxim

Breaking a maxim in an open way so that it’s obvious to all concerned